Cameras make good decisions. Anyone can pick one up, point, and press a button. Great shots result, even from my cheapy old phone. Before all this micro-electro-computational-mechanical wizardry there were of course many advancements [20 firsts in photography].
The early cameras didn’t even have viewfinders. Outside of the “camera obscura,” the first photo was taken in 1816, silver oxide responding to light and fixing the shadows.
Going back to those first photos, people didn’t generally aim cameras at things they didn’t find interesting, or beautiful, or striking. The scene was seen, then shot. An eye toward marvel, wonder, art, and/or curiosity, including how the photo might turn out, having to wait a while sometimes. Once viewed, I don’t know if I'm the only one, often the shots turn out better than I remembered seeing the scenes. The camera-machine does its job well.
From my photos you may have noticed that I do point-and-shoot photography along with the masses. Auto-mode. I never spend much time composing, often there isn’t any; the “golden hour” seems to fade quickly, long shadows don’t stay still very long, and birds (my favorite) fly swiftly.
My brother composes a lot (most?) of his shots carefully. He knows cameras so well that amazing composition comes naturally. Spending time adjusting with his eye, not so much the camera’s, produces incredible images. His photography site [home page uses Flash]: http://outlandimages.com/main.html
The non-Flash galleries (plus he has many, many prints and slides not shown, but incredible - I hope someday he digitizes it all, a huge task for a busy guy): http://outlandimages.com/galleries.php
Thanks to The Cloud, those earliest photos up to my brother’s latest will go on as long as humans do, along with all the other great creations of the eye, ear, and brain. A repository of knowledge, great words, images,... The ultimate global library.
So do I think it’s all art, the maybe trillions of images and their fixed shadows? I think it’s the most artsy art. A moment (all there is really) captured with a truth machine. Brushes are great, so are impressions, and all the rest. Photography is devotion to honesty (mostly, doctoring of course sometimes is done beyond the usual adjustments, and for artistic purposes).
A great episode [1hr.] of the six-part BBC series: “The Genius of Photography, Fixing the Shadows” including a demonstration of camera obscura. Seeing this years ago was the motivation for this post.
The early cameras didn’t even have viewfinders. Outside of the “camera obscura,” the first photo was taken in 1816, silver oxide responding to light and fixing the shadows.
Going back to those first photos, people didn’t generally aim cameras at things they didn’t find interesting, or beautiful, or striking. The scene was seen, then shot. An eye toward marvel, wonder, art, and/or curiosity, including how the photo might turn out, having to wait a while sometimes. Once viewed, I don’t know if I'm the only one, often the shots turn out better than I remembered seeing the scenes. The camera-machine does its job well.
From my photos you may have noticed that I do point-and-shoot photography along with the masses. Auto-mode. I never spend much time composing, often there isn’t any; the “golden hour” seems to fade quickly, long shadows don’t stay still very long, and birds (my favorite) fly swiftly.
My brother composes a lot (most?) of his shots carefully. He knows cameras so well that amazing composition comes naturally. Spending time adjusting with his eye, not so much the camera’s, produces incredible images. His photography site [home page uses Flash]: http://outlandimages.com/main.html
The non-Flash galleries (plus he has many, many prints and slides not shown, but incredible - I hope someday he digitizes it all, a huge task for a busy guy): http://outlandimages.com/galleries.php
Thanks to The Cloud, those earliest photos up to my brother’s latest will go on as long as humans do, along with all the other great creations of the eye, ear, and brain. A repository of knowledge, great words, images,... The ultimate global library.
So do I think it’s all art, the maybe trillions of images and their fixed shadows? I think it’s the most artsy art. A moment (all there is really) captured with a truth machine. Brushes are great, so are impressions, and all the rest. Photography is devotion to honesty (mostly, doctoring of course sometimes is done beyond the usual adjustments, and for artistic purposes).
A great episode [1hr.] of the six-part BBC series: “The Genius of Photography, Fixing the Shadows” including a demonstration of camera obscura. Seeing this years ago was the motivation for this post.